The First Three Centuries José Luis Jasso

Rev. Prof. Gerard H. Ettlinger ,S.J

THE HUMANITY OF JESUS

Throughout the history of Christianity, people have tried to understand the

nature of Jesus Christ by asking themselves questions such as: Was he God?

Did he feel everything we feel? Was he aware of his divinity? Was he truly born

from God and the Virgin Mary? Or did God adopt him at the moment of his

baptism or resurrection? To deal with all of these questions the early Christian

church tried to articulate the doctrine of the nature of Jesus Christ. This was no

easy task since the Christian Movement did not begin in one place alone, but

began in many different places where the disciples had gone to preach the good

news. Each one of them tried to reflect and explain what the experience of being

with Jesus was like, as well as what his death meant to them. Once they made

sense out of it, they began to share their experience with the people that were

around them. These people in turn had to make the preaching of Jesus Christ

their own.

Trying to explain the humanity of Jesus Christ gave rise to many heresies.

During the early period of the church different schools of thought explained the

divinity and humanity of Jesus differently: two schools, one in Antioch in Syria,

the other in Alexandria in Egypt are good examples of this difference. The school

of Antioch’s interpretation about Jesus, “proceed from the humanity of Jesus and

view his divinity in his consciousness of God, founded in the divine mission that

was imposed upon him by God through the infusion of the Holy Spirit.” i In

opposition to this thinking, the school of Alexandria focused on the divinity of

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The First Three Centuries José Luis Jasso
Rev. Prof. Gerard H. Ettlinger ,S.J

Jesus. “This view is expressed by the Gospel according to John, which regards

the figure of Jesus Christ as the divine Logos become flesh.” ii “Apollinarians

argued that in the human Jesus the Logos had replaced his mind or spirit. This

view amounted to a denial of the full humanity of Christ.” iii Another heresy during

this early period was “adoptionism” which in its teaching was concerned with

safeguarding “the true humanity of Jesus, by teaching that he was an ordinary

man, adopted as the son of God in the moment of his baptism or after the

resurrection.”iv

The first three centuries of the early Christian church was a period in

which people fought their own earlier traditions and faith in order to search for

new meaning. It is important to remember that Jesus was a Jew as well as his

disciples were. The early members of the Christian church therefore were Jews

and pagans trying to establish a Christian identity. They brought with them their

inherited faith, traditions, way of life and views about life. As this new way of life

began to spread, Christianity came in touch with the Roman and Greek culture in

a period known as hellenization. This early period of the Christian church was in

itself a blending period. This blend of cultures would make a strong amalgam

with a spirit of its own and a force that has inspired many people for two

thousand years.

The first three centuries of the early christian church can be divided into

two major periods. The first period includes “The Apostolic Fathers” who were the

disciples and immediate successors of the Apostles. An example of The

Apostolic Fathers’ teachings about Jesus Christ is this fragment from “The

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The First Three Centuries José Luis Jasso
Rev. Prof. Gerard H. Ettlinger ,S.J

Epistles of Ignatius to the Ephesians, “For our God, Jesus Christ , was, according

to the appointment of God, conceived in the womb by Mary, of the seed of David,

but by the Holy Ghost. He was born and baptized, that by His passion He might

purify the water.”v The second period includes “The Apologists.” They were

concerned to explain and defend Christianity and the person of Jesus Christ

using philosophy and developing theology in a way that the educated people of

their time were able to understand and accept.

During the first period the Apostolic Fathers’ teachings about Jesus Christ

did not try to establish a theology which explained the humanity or divinity of

Jesus. Their teachings were from a spontaneous and simple faith about the

person of Jesus Christ. The Apostolic Fathers taught that Jesus Christ was born

of the Virgin Mary, He lived and died under Pontius Pilate and was resurrected

as the Christ, full of humanity and full of divinity. The Apostolic Fathers always

made it very clear that Jesus Christ shed his blood for our salvation.

In the gospel “ The Apostolic Fathers ” found a Jesus Christ, Son of God,

who came down from heaven, lived among us, a Jesus Christ that suffered and

died for the forgiveness of our sins. They also found a human Jesus Christ, full of

human emotion, doubts and worries. The early fathers of the church were able to

see all of these things. Some verses of The Bible that talk about the humanity of

Jesus through His emotions are:

Jesus loved and was loved (Mark 10:21; John 11:5; 11:3,36; 13:23;

19:26 ; 20:2; 21 :7,20)

Jesus cried (Luke 19:41-44; John 11:35-36 12:2)

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The First Three Centuries José Luis Jasso
Rev. Prof. Gerard H. Ettlinger ,S.J

Jesus was joyful and happy (John 2; 15:11; Matt 9:9-10; Mark 2:13-15;

Luke 5:27-29;19:7; 7:36; 11:37; 14:1; 10:21)

Jesus was angry ( Matt 11:20-24; 21:12-13; 23:13-36; Mark 8:33;

3:5)

Jesus became exasperated (Luke 7:31-35; Mark 8:11-13; 14-21; 10:14

Jesus felt helplessness. (Matt 14:13-14; 15,32-39; 9:22; Mark 6:34;

Luke 7:11-17 6:31)

Jesus felt fear (Matt 26:36-46; 6:25-34; John 12:27-28)

The Apostolic Fathers preached Jesus as being fully human and fully

divine. Clement of Rome writes “Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Scepter of the

Majesty of God, did not come in the pomp of pride or arrogance, although He

might have done so.”vi “He [God] has rendered the Lord Jesus Christ the first-

fruits by raising Him from dead.”vii

Clement of Rome sees Jesus Christ as someone to whom everybody can

relate. Since Jesus was truly human and at the same time truly divine, it is easier

for us (human beings) to identify with God. With this teaching Clement makes

Jesus God and at the same time a human moral example to follow, since

Clement’s teaching “firmly set in a clear consciousness of knowing the living

God, and living a redeemed life in Christ.”viii

Ignatius of Antioch had a clear and simple view about who Jesus Christ

was. He based his teaching in a Jesus who was human, suffered and died; and a

Jesus who is the Son of God, who died and was raised from the dead. “It is the

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The First Three Centuries José Luis Jasso
Rev. Prof. Gerard H. Ettlinger ,S.J

credit of Ignatius that he writes like one who still feels the immense personal

impression of the life of Christ.” ix

Ignatius’ letters warn the people of the early christian church against the

denial of Christ’s human nature and suffering, which is known as “The Docetic

heresy” (As well this heresy denies unity of the church and the authority of the

bishop.) Ignatius affirms Jesus Christ’s true divinity and true humanity. ”He is the

Logos who reveals the Father; he bestows immortality through his death and
x
resurrection.” Some fragments of his letters show clearly how Ignatius warned

people about the heresies of the time;

“For our God, Jesus Christ, was, according to the appointment of

God, conceived in the womb by Mary, of the seed of David, but by the

Holy Ghost. He was born and baptized, that by His passion He might

purify the water.” xi

“God Himself being manifested in human form for the renewal of

eternal life.” xii …..

“ Jesus Christ, who was descended from David, and was also of

Mary; who was truly born, and did eat and drink. He was truly

persecuted, under Pontius Pilate; He was truly crucified, and [truly]

died, in the sight of being in heaven, and on earth, and under the

earth. He was truly raised from the dead, His father quickening Him,

even as after the same manner His father will so raise us up who

believe in Him by Christ Jesus.” xiii

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The First Three Centuries José Luis Jasso
Rev. Prof. Gerard H. Ettlinger ,S.J

The second period of the early church saw the hellenisation of Christian

doctrine and the search for an explanation of Jesus Christ’s humanity and divinity

through Greco-Roman philosophy. These Christian writers are known as

“Apologists.”

During this period Christianity and its theology were influenced by Plato’s

philosophy and stoicism . The apologists identified Jesus Christ as the Logos, the

revelation of the Father’s love . In his humanity Jesus taught us about the Father

and His Will. For the Greeks Logos meant “ a relationship between reasoning

beings. Logos seemed to dwell in all, giving order, balance, and unity to things

and processes. In short, Logos made the Kosmos.”xiv “ Logos also offered a link

to the realm of the divine.”xv The Greco-Roman culture is strongly influenced with

the teaching of Plato’s view of Logos. “ At a basic level, he linked logos to orderly

statements, the reasoning activity within a person, and that which transcends

opinions and appearances. He used “Logos” to describe the great cosmos and

its parts, including humans. Logos, then, was a power that relates to order in the

universe and the ability of human to comprehend its parts.”xvi “We can then say

that Logos is the source of all intellectual and spiritual enlightenment.” xvii The

apologists used this understanding of logos and used it to transport the early

Christian faith and belief in Jesus Christ into a Hellenistic culture, explaining

Christianity to the people and defending Christianity from wrongful accusations.

Some examples of the use of this philosophy are shown in the following

apologists’ fragments;

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The First Three Centuries José Luis Jasso
Rev. Prof. Gerard H. Ettlinger ,S.J

Justinus (Justin Martyr) in his Apologia “Heathen Gods are

Demons” writes: “They are active against us on just the same lines.

For not only was the truth of those matters established by Socrates

among the Greeks by the application of reason (logos) himself who

took the form and was made man, and received the name Jesus

Christ.”xviii And in the apologia “ The Logos and the philosophers” he

writes; …..” for each, through his share in the divine generative

Logos, spoke well, seeing what was akin to it”xix

Irenaeus writes in his apologia “ The Divine and Human

Nature of Christ” the following statement: “ There is one God, who, by

his Word and Wisdom made and ordered all things…. His Word is our

Lord Jesus Christ who in these last times became a man among men,

that he might unite the end with the beginning, that is God.” xx And he

also writes,” Our Lord Jesus Christ, the word of God, of his boundless

love, became what we are that he might make us what he himself is.”

As we can see Justinus and Irenaeus make use of the Greco-Roman philosophy,

making it their own and using it to describe who Jesus is for the Christian, putting

words, concepts and ideas of Jesus into a language and a mind set of the time,

culturally excepted and understood.

While trying to explain the divinity of Jesus by ways of the “Logos”, the apologists

never lost sight of the human side of Jesus Christ and therefore we find

statements of different writing from different authors emphasizing the human side

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The First Three Centuries José Luis Jasso
Rev. Prof. Gerard H. Ettlinger ,S.J

of Jesus Christ, as well as his suffering and death. Irenaeus writes about this in

his apologias. Some fragments are;

“ He is truly the good and suffering Son of God, the word of God the

Father made the son of man. For he strove and conquered. He was a man

contending on behalf of the Father.”xxi

“God became man, and it was Lord himself who saved us.” xxii

“If he did nor suffer there was no grace.”xxiii

“Man is in all respects the handiwork of God; thus he consummates

man in himself: he was invisible and became visible;

incomprehensible and made comprehensible; impassible and made

passible; the word, and made man; consummating all things in

himself.” xxiv

Tertullian also tries to highlight the humanity of Jesus Christ. Some examples of

his ideas are:

“his most famous misquoted statement is: The Son of God died; it

is must needs be believed because it is absurd. He was buried and

rose again; it is certain because it is impossible.”xxv

“ If it was God the father suffering, to what God was he crying? But

this was the cry of flesh and soul ( that is, of man) not of the Word

and Spirit.”xxvi

“Christ was send to die, and therefore he had the necessity to be

born.”xxvii

Clement of Alexandria writes:

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The First Three Centuries José Luis Jasso
Rev. Prof. Gerard H. Ettlinger ,S.J

“Believe, O man, in him who is man and God: believe in him who

suffered and is worshipped as the living God”xxviii

“He is the purifying, saving delectable Word, the divine Word, who

is truly God most manifest, made equal to the Ruler of all; because

he was the Son, and the Word was with God.”xxix

One of the most talented apologists was Origen ( Clement’s pupil ) who writes

about Jesus Christ

“ The lord when he took flesh was tempted by every temptation by

which men are to be tempted. He was tempted for this purpose,

that we may over come with his victory.” “When he took upon him

[himself] the nature of human flesh he fully accepted all the

characteristic properties of humanity, so that it should be realized

that he had a body of flesh in reality and not in mere appearance.”

He wrote an extend work on the humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ. Some of

these works and some fragments of his work are:

• On Christ (page 7 class copies)

• Jesus and the word

• The Sinlessness of Christ

• The two Natures

• The reality of the human nature

“ The Lord when he took flesh was tempted by every temptation by

which men are to be tempted.”xxx

• The agony

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The First Three Centuries José Luis Jasso
Rev. Prof. Gerard H. Ettlinger ,S.J

“ When he took upon him the nature of the human flesh he fully

accepted all the characteristic properties of humanity…..”xxxi

As we can see the first three centuries of the Christian Church were a

corner stone for establishing the faith, idea, knowledge and a basic

understanding about who Jesus Christ was, is and will be. For the

apostolic Fathers Jesus Christ was the Word made flesh , the eternal

Logos. It is important to mention that The Apostolic Fathers never lost

sight or put a side the humanity of Jesus Christ. Through out their

teachings we encounter a Jesus Christ who is truly human and truly

divine. For them to follow Jesus Christ meant the only possible way to

have eternal salvation, Jesus taught us how to live in this world.

The period of the early Christian church was a time where ideas, concepts and

point of view about Jesus were molded and accepted in a slow but firm way.

These ideas were unified into one church belief. This faith in Jesus Christ as well

as the theology that surfaced from people deeply touched by Jesus Christ’s life,

teaching, and example were based in the Gospel and a living faith that could

almost be touched. The empathy form between Jesus Christ and the Apostolic

Fathers’ teaching was only possible because He was a human being and knew,

lived and understood our hopes, illusions, weakness, desires, sickness and

sinfulness. This kind of assimilation is only understood for us humans if Jesus

Christ is one with us.

The Apostolic Fathers were men of their time, influenced by the social,

economical and intellectual context of that period. Therefor the way they

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The First Three Centuries José Luis Jasso
Rev. Prof. Gerard H. Ettlinger ,S.J

expressed their ideas, feeling, emotions and faith about Jesus Christ were

influenced by the mind set of those days. It was a time to lay down the

foundations of our Christian faith.

Therefor I conclude that the Apostolic Fathers saw in Jesus Christ a human

being equal to us in every way except sin and at the same time a truly divine God

who by his death and resurrection we were saved.

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i
Encyclopedia Britannica Online
http://members.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=108299&sctn=1&pm=1
ii
Ibid
iii
Microsoft Encarte Online Encyclopedia 2000
http://encarta.msn./find/print.asp?pg=8&ti=761562497&sc=0&pt=1
iv
Ibid
v
Campus Course Paks, “Readings From Early Christian Literature” P 32
vi
Ibid P.3. C.16
vii
Ibid P 4. C 16
viii
Chadwick Henry, “The Early Christian Fathers”: [Oxford University Press] P 3
ix
Ibid P 5
x
Ibid P 4
xi
Idem Campus Course Paks P 32
xii
Ibid P 32
xiii
Ibid P 36
xiv
Walter H.Wagner , “After The Apostles”: [Fortress press 1994] P 46
xv
Ibid P 46
xvi
Ibid P 47
xvii
Class notes
xviii
Bettenson Henry. “The Early Christian Fathers”, [Oxford University Press] P 58
xix
Ibid P 63
xx
Ibid P 77
xxi
Ibid P 78
xxii
Ibid P 78
xxiii
Ibid P 78
xxiv
Ibid P 81
xxv
Idem Chadwick Henry , The Early Christian Fathers P 14
xxvi
Idem Bettenson Henry The Early Christian Fathers P 124
xxvii
Ibid P 129
xxviii
Ibid P 172
xxix
Ibid P 172
xxx
Ibid P 218
xxxi
Ibid P 219